In her latest book, mathematician Eugenia Cheng invites readers to see math as more than just right or wrong answers.
Every mathematician has a story that goes something like this. You’re at a party, and someone asks what you do for a living. “I’m a mathematician,” you say. “You must be a genius!” they reply. Or perhaps you end up being an impromptu therapist to someone who needs to vent about traumatic experiences they had in math class decades ago.
Mathematician Eugenia Cheng has spent much of her career working to alleviate those anxieties. As scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she teaches mathematics to artists, many of whom have never seen themselves as “math people.” She has also written several books, for both adults and children, that seek to cultivate mathematical curiosity and illustrate some of the ways mathematical thinking can enrich our lives.
Students are naturally curious about numbers and patterns, but math classes often teach them that math facts should be accepted without question. For instance, a student might learn that a prime number is defined as a whole number — a positive number without a fractional or decimal part — that is only divisible by itself and 1. The number 1, however, is not considered a prime number. If a student asks why not, they will likely be told it just isn’t; deal with it.
Mathematicians have found the uniqueness of these products useful for exploring properties of numbers, so they came to the consensus not to include 1 in the primes about a century ago. Considering the reasons mathematicians define primes precisely the way they do is more interesting than simply accepting the definition so you can get an A on a math test.